CBI and the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Initiative

In 2006, CBI and Search for Common Ground initiated the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project (USME). With CBI's Managing Director, David Fairman, acting as USME’s co-director, the USME sought to create a coherent, broad-based, bipartisan strategy and set of recommendations to improve relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world.

Fairman was the principal author of the influential 2008 report written by USME’s Leadership Group, Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World, which represents the first senior, bipartisan and interfaith U.S. leadership consensus on a comprehensive approach to improving U.S.-Muslim relations. The Leadership Group, includes former U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright; President and Founder of the American Task Force on Palestine, Ziad Asali; and many other experts from business, faith communities, foreign policy, social sciences, and related fields. Moving beyond current deadlocked debates, the Group crafted a multi-faceted strategy to enhance U.S. and international security.

USMEI's first U.S.-Pakistan Leaders Forum, held in February 2011 at Pakistan’s Lahore University of Management Sciences, provided a credible and visible demonstration of mutually beneficial, people-to-people partnerships between the U.S. and Pakistan. Over the comings years, the Forum will bring together diverse leaders to work collaboratively on issues of education, business, agriculture, media, health and social services, local governance, and energy – and to create and implement new partnerships based on a direct exchange of skills and experience.

U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project (1 of 2)

A collaboration between the Consensus Building Institute and Search for Common Ground, the U.S. Muslim Engagement Initiative has crafted a multi-faceted strategy to enhance U.S. and international security and improve U.S.-Muslim relations. This is Part 1 of a 2-part "Link TV" documentary on the creation of the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Initiative.

U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project (2 of 2)

The U.S. Muslim Engagement Initiative has crafted a multi-faceted strategy to enhance U.S. and international security and improve U.S.-Muslim relations. The Initiative will disseminate this new broad-based strategy, in order to shift American public opinion, impact government policies, and stimulate effective public and private action. This is Part 2 of a 2-part "Link TV" documentary on the creation of the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Initiative.